Gabriel rubbed the back of one hand over an oozing gash on her cheek and then wiped the blood off on her black-armored thigh. “All of them,” she agreed grimly. “I’ve sent the host after them, but the damage—”
Her voice cracked. She swallowed, set her jaw, and continued, “Even though we outnumber them almost three to one, it will take time. There will be collateral damage, Verchiel. A great deal of collateral damage.”
A tidy way of saying that all of humanity would likely be destroyed. Or at least enough of it that the Nephilim who followed would have no difficulty wiping out the remainder. Verchiel rested an elbow on the arm of the chair and put a trembling hand to her temple. Heaven’s worst nightmare had come to pass: They had failed the One. Failed her mortal children.
The war had gone to Earth.
“We need to tell Mika’el.”
Gabriel’s voice penetrated Verchiel’s fog. She nodded.
“Of course. Yes. We must.”
“You know where he is?”
Now her head shook. “No. Raphael caught an image of where Emmanuelle was taking the humans, but Mika’el’s thoughts stayed hidden from him.”
“Then I’ll go to Emmanuelle. She’ll know where to find him.”
“We don’t know that she—”
“We have to take the chance.”
“Of course.” Verchiel described the house Raphael had seen in the minds of the humans who had left the beach with Emmanuelle, finishing with, “One of them thought of the city of Victoria, another of a town known as Colwood. Raphael didn’t have time to delve for details, but I looked into both places. Colwood is less populated and more remote.”
“Fewer Guardians. Easier to hide.” Gabriel nodded agreement. “Good. I’ll start there.”
“How is he, by the way? Raphael.”
“Battered, but still able to fight. I put him in charge of the angels defending the Earth’s United Kingdom.” Gabriel reached for the doorknob, adding over her shoulder, “Pull in the Guardians and make sure they’re armed. As soon as I’ve spoken to Mika’el, I’ll be back to deploy them.”
“And me.”
Halfway out the door, Gabriel stopped. She turned and swept her gaze over Verchiel. “You’re certain? You’re the executive administrator. Heaven needs—”
“Heaven won’t exist if we don’t win this, Gabriel.”
The Archangel inclined her head. “Very well. Be ready to go when I return.”
CHAPTER 52
EMMANUELLE TOOK REFUGE ON the deck that stretched the length of one side of Scorpion’s safe house. She stared out over treetops that dropped away down the hillside on the forest’s way to the ocean, a shimmer of light below in the slow approach of dawn. Her breath fogged the air in long puffs. The chill of reality seeped into her core, and the harshness of loss into her heart.
Spider, Scissors, Wizard, Hog, Tiny, Queenie…gone.
Her independence and anonymity…gone.
And the One…gone.
That loss was the one that surprised her most. Not because it had happened—though she had to admit that a part of her couldn’t quite fathom the death of the Creator herself—but because of how keenly she felt it. Like a razor had been drawn over her heart again and again, its blade so fine, she hadn’t felt its presence until it was too late. Until her heart was laid open in a thousand quivering slivers, bleeding into her soul.
They had never talked again after Emmanuelle had left Heaven. Never reconciled. Never forgiven one another. They’d had neither chance nor reason. Emmanuelle had never intended to return to Heaven, and her mother was supposed to go on forever there, to prove Emmanuelle wrong, to finally come into her own and wrest control of the universe back from Lucifer.
Because despite what Mika’el and the One had thought, the Light-bearer had been very much in control. From the moment the Creator had sought—and failed—to distract him from his jealousies over her mortal children by giving him a child of his own, she had been lost. The One hadn’t been able to see that, and Mika’el had refused to, but a tiny part of Emmanuelle had never given up hope that they might.
And now they had come to this, with Heaven on the brink of destruction, dependent on the choice of the one being who wanted no part of it. Who had long ago severed her connection to it and had no reason to care whether it—or its inhabitants—survived.
Emmanuelle rested her elbows on the railing. No reason except knowing humanity’s own survival hinged on the outcome—and she did care about them.
One of the French doors behind her swung open on hinges that needed oiling. Booted footsteps approached, vibrating through the deck. A mug appeared under her nose.
“Coffee,” Scorpion said. “Jez made a pot.”
She took it from him, raising an eyebrow as she caught a whiff of alcohol. “A little early for that, don’t you think?”
“It was a rough night.” Scorpion shrugged. “You looked like you could use it.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him it would have no effect on her. That it never had and never would, because she wasn’t—
“Thank you,” she said. She sipped at the whiskey-laced coffee. She thought about asking how the others fared, but she didn’t need to. Now that she had opened herself to her power again, she could feel them in the house behind her. Their presence. Their shock. Their fear. Some had taken refuge in sleep. Others hunkered around the kitchen table, talking in low murmurs that Emmanuelle chose not to listen in on. It had only been a couple of hours since they’d left the beach for the dark, winding ride up to Scorpion’s mountain house, a handful of hours since their friends had died at the bar, and already it seemed an eternity. So many changes had been wrought.
“So.” Scorpion cleared his throat. “You want to talk?”
The invitation was calm and non-accusatory, reminding her of Jezebel’s earlier, easy acceptance of blue sparkles and fireballs, and Wookie’s casual observation about understanding why she never felt the cold. Did they still feel the same way about her now, after the beach and Mika’el, after her own highhanded behavior?
Jaw flexing, Emmanuelle blinked back a prickle of tears and tightened her grip on the mug. If by some miracle they did, talking to Scorpion would end that. Expectations would change. The friendships she treasured would come to an end. The family she’d built would be no more.
Beefy fingers plucked the mug from her hands and set it on the rail, then settled on her shoulder. Scorpion turned her to face him, his expression earnest. Determined.
“What Jez told you yesterday was right, you know. We’ve always known you were special. Tonight didn’t change anything, and neither will anything you tell me now.”
Oh, how she wished that could be true. She shook her head. “People died today, Scorpion. Your friends died. Because of me.”
“Our friends died, Manny. And they would do it again. Willingly. As would any of the rest of us.”
“Don’t.” She tried to pull away, but his grip held firm. She stared at the hollow at the base of his throat. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth. Some things are worth dying for. Like it or not, we consider you one of them.”
She shuddered at the words, thinking of the millions in Earth’s history who had died in the name of her mother.
One more reason she didn’t want what Mika’el asked her to take. Couldn’t step into her mother’s shoes.
She shook her head. “That’s easy for you to say, but you don’t know—”
“Then don’t tell me.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I mean it. If it’s that hard for you, don’t say anything. We forget the whole thing. Put it behind us. We rest up here today, get on the bikes tomorrow, and hit the road. Simple as that. It wouldn’t be the first time any of us have pulled up roots and started over.”
“You would do that for me?” She stared up at the wall of a man towering over her. “Even after the way I behaved—after what I said about the baby?”
>
“You’re the only thing that matters to any of us, Manny.” Massive tattooed shoulders shrugged beneath the tank top Scorpion wore. He reached out to cradle her cheek with a gentleness that belied his sheer brute strength. “You’re family. We trust you. If you say we don’t feed that squalling little scrap, we don’t feed it. And if you want to leave, we leave.”
For a moment, she considered the idea.
No, she embraced it. Heart, mind, and soul, she wrapped herself around the possibility, imagined the feel of the bike beneath her and the wind in her hair, and made it her choice. With ever fiber of her—
She put her hand over Scorpion’s against her cheek. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m not what you think, Scorpion.”
“You’re like them. The ones with the wings. We know that.” He shrugged again. “We don’t need to know more.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m…”
More? Less? Different? How in Hell did she explain what she was when she didn’t know herself?
“Hey.”
Scorpion’s gruff voice drew her attention back to him again.
“You’re what you choose to be,” he said. “Remember? We all are. That’s what you told each of us when we found you. You don’t want to be an angel, then don’t. We have your back no matter what you decide. The power of choice, Emmanuelle. It was the gift you gave us, and now you need to remember it’s your gift, too.”
She opened her mouth to respond, to tell him she knew that, but then she stopped.
“Choices have consequences, Emmanuelle,” Mika’el’s voice came back to her from five thousand years before. “Are you sure this one is how you wish to define yourself?”
She hadn’t understood then. Not like she did now.
If she’d stayed, she might have seen Mittron’s machinations.
Might have stopped him.
Might have influenced her brother or been the strength her mother needed to stop Lucifer.
Might have prevented a mortal woman from suffering the agonies Alexandra Jarvis had been through.
She might have done so, so much.
She turned her head to gaze out across the treetops and the ocean and the sky that grew lighter with each passing moment. She pushed her sight outward, to the slumbering town nearby, the city beyond that. There was a whole realm sprawling beneath the sky. A realm of intricate, finely balanced glory, filled with the children of her mother’s creation. Children like Wookie and Jez and Scorpion and all the others Emmanuelle had known and cared for over her years among them.
Children who hovered on the brink of extinction because of choices. Hers. Her parents’. Mika’el’s. Their own.
Choices.
Consequences.
Crushing responsibility.
This was what Mika’el had understood.
What her mother had lived with.
The faint scent of roses filtered in on the breeze. Then the French door banged open and Bethiel stood framed in the opening.
“The human news,” he said. “You need to see it.”
Before Emmanuelle could react, another presence appeared, this one in a whirl of black wings and a gust of wind that knocked the mountain-like Scorpion clean off his feet and rattled the windows in their frames. Emmanuelle stared at the armor-clad female Archangel.
“Gabriel?”
The red-headed warrior turned. A fierce, sapphire-blue gaze raked over Emmanuelle, then rose to meet hers, becoming bleak, cold, barren.
“The Fallen have brought the war to Earth,” Gabriel said. “We’re out of time.”
CHAPTER 53
MIKA’EL STARED OUT THE French doors at the tiny yard beyond. The flowers were gone at this time of year, but the streetlight just beyond the fence still showed the beds to be tidy and well tended. The One would have liked this Elizabeth Riley who gardened here. She’d had a special place in her heart for all those who had shared her love of growing things, of caring for life.
Of preserving it rather than plotting to destroy it.
His mouth tightened and he swung away from the doors. The television in the corner beckoned. It was a poor way to get the information he wanted, but short of leaving Alex to go back to Heaven—or sending out a beacon to nearby Guardians that might be traced by others—it was all he had. With a grimace, he waved a hand, and the television flickered to life. Tanks and armored vehicles rumbled across the screen.
“…as overwhelmed U.N. troops left the country, marking the fifth retreat in the last week,” said the voice of the female newscaster. “The U.N. has already abandoned similar peacekeeping efforts in South Sudan, Mali, Darfur, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and officials announced today that it will pull out of its remaining eleven operations by the end of next week. With unrest continuing to mount across the world, troops will return to their own countries to aid in efforts to minimize the escalating chaos.”
The video disappeared, replaced by the somber newscaster. “The death toll continues to mount in the wake of the retreat, with an estimated thirteen thousand civilians killed in missile attacks by Hezbollah.”
The camera angle changed. The newscaster’s gaze followed it. “In other news, there are reports from Moscow, the U.K., and South Korea today of more winged aliens. Governments continue to claim these so-called appearances are little more than a well-executed hoax, but a number of home videos have surfaced of the aliens seeming to destroy entire buildings as they fight among themselves. We’ll be back with that story—and the video footage—in a moment.”
An advertisement took over the television screen, its music and pitch for some kind of alcoholic beverage blasting into the living room. Mika’el felt Alex stir in the bed down the hall. He waved his hand, and the television went blank and silent.
Winged aliens. Angels. Here, visible, with buildings falling in the wake of their battles. He waited, expecting shock to settle in, but he could summon nothing more than fatigue. Resignation.
So the war had come to Earth at last. Even if Emmanuelle decided to side with Heaven, it might very well be too late for humani—
A guttural wail echoed through the condo, filled with despair, and Michael’s heart stopped.
Alex.
*
Alex woke in a bed, the sheets cool against her naked skin, the darkened room speaking to night. The lights of a passing vehicle slid across the ceiling, illuminating enough for her to recognize Elizabeth Riley’s bedroom. She was back in the condo, but how—? And what and where and when—?
Something had happened. She knew that. Felt it in the hollowness of her heart, the clench of her belly. Something had happened, but the harder she tried to recall what, the more ephemeral became the memories. The shadows of memories. She squeezed her eyes closed and pushed against the barrier she sensed in her mind. It stayed solid, unmoved by her increasing desperation to remember.
She scowled. It was no use. Something might have happened, but someone didn’t want her to remember it. And she knew only one someone capable of that kind of interference. Someone who should damned well know better than to screw with her brain. She pushed aside the covers to slip from the bed, then paused.
Outside, a motorcycle slowed for the stop sign at the corner, its distinctive, throaty rumble marking it as a Harley-Davidson. A memory struggled to the surface of Alex’s brain but sank again before she could grasp it. The Harley’s motor revved. An image flared in her mind.
Bikes lined up outside a bar.
The motor gunned. More images flashed.
A woman—Emmanuelle—flying backward into a mirror behind a bar. Shattered glass. Splintered tables. Seth. Michael.
The Harley roared away, shattering the neighborhood’s quiet—and with it, whatever barrier had been placed between Alex and what had come before. In one tumbling, tumultuous, devastating rush, she remembered. Remembered it all.
Emmanuelle pulling her from the wreckage of the bar. The injured bikers. Michael’s armor fused to his body. Emmanuelle tearing i
t away from him. His roar of agony. The arrival of Bethiel on the beach.
Nina.
Oh God. Nina.
Alex sucked for air. It slid down her throat like razor blades, slicing her open from the inside. Agony swept in its wake, and she whimpered. Nina was gone. Dead before she’d been found. Dead alone in childbirth, beyond Alex’s reach.
Alex had failed her. Failed the last person she’d loved. The last of her family. She curled into a ball, her knees drawn up to protect her chest, her heart. Fingers threaded themselves into her hair. Tangled. Tightened. Pulled. Physical pain warred with mental agony. Carefully built compartment walls cracked. Crumbled. Alex’s whimper became a moan.
Nina. Jen. Aramael. All gone—because of her.
Seth loosed on the world—because of her.
The existence of humanity itself hanging in the balance—because of her.
Immortality.
The last thought slammed into her brain with the force of a locomotive, stopping the flood of thoughts and images in their tracks. For an instant, a heartbeat, her mind ceased to function at all.
Then—finally, blessedly—she felt the threads of sanity begin to unravel. Stood on the edge of a precipice, staring into the abyss she instinctively knew had swallowed Jen, and before her, their mother. Stood, stared, and willed her mind to plunge over the edge, into the darkness that waited. The nothingness.
The madness that would be so much less mad than her reality could ever be.
From a long way away came a low, keening wail, filling her ears, pushing her closer and closer to oblivion.
And then the strong arms that had lifted her from Nina’s side at the beach picked her up from the bed, sheet and all, and cradled her with a tenderness and compassion she didn’t want, didn’t deserve…couldn’t bear.
The wail became one of protest and loss and anguish. She fought the arms, but they held tighter, refusing to let go. Refusing to let her splinter into the fragments she wanted to become. Refusing to give her up to the grief that raged at her core and tried to swallow her from the inside out.
Until only the grief and the arms existed at all, locked in a battle for her very soul, and a warrior’s compassion became her entire world.
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